Jacques Cousteau/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. Moby is scuba diving in a huge fish tank at an aquarium. Tim pounds on the glass and shouts, trying to get Moby's attention. TIM: Moby. Moby, what are you doing in there? Someone behind Tim taps him on the shoulder. Tim turns around. A grumpy security guard points to a sign on the wall. The sign reads: Do not tap on glass. TIM: Sorry. Tim looks embarrassed. Moby walks up to him, still wearing his scuba gear, including his fins. His footsteps squish as he walks. He hands Tim a soaking-wet sheet of paper. Tim reads from the typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, I love nature shows and my dad says I should check out Jacques Cousteau. Who's he? From, Cristobal. Hey, Cristobal. Jacques Cousteau was a filmmaker, inventor, author, and conservationist. An animation shows a family watching TV. Images of Jacques Cousteau appear on the television set. TIM: People our parents' age grew up watching his award-winning documentaries. The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was a huge television hit in the 1960s and 70s. The television shows four scuba divers holding underwater torches as they swim. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah. Cousteau pretty much pioneered the concept of the nature show. He was obsessed with exploring underwater worlds. That's kind of what made him so popular. An animation shows Cousteau and two assistants exploring an underwater cave. TIM: Even as a kid, he was driven by a thirst for adventure. Where others might see a gross, murky lake, young Jacques envisioned a new world waiting to be explored. An animation shows Cousteau as a kid, standing on a dockof a dirty, mossy lake. A sign next to the dock reads: No Swimming, Lake Needs Cleaning. Cousteau looks aroundand then jumps in and swims toward the lake's bottom. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Actually, Moby, that's a true story from Cousteau's childhood. He never forgot his experience cleaning the pond at summer camp. An animation shows Cousteau swimming in the pond and cleaning it. TIM: A bit later, he discovered his other great passion. Jacques began messing around with home movies as a teenager. An animation shows a teenage Cousteau with a small, windup movie camera. TIM: Being behind the lens gave him confidence. An animation shows Cousteau taking black-and-white film footage of a wedding. TIM: It was like a magic wand that commanded people's respect and granted him access to wherever he wanted to go. He fell in love with framing moments and stitching them together into stories. A decade later, he connected his two passions. Cousteau's film shows the bride and groom eating wedding cake. MOBY: Beep. TIM: At 25, Cousteau almost died in a car crash. An animation shows Cousteau's accident, on a country road at night. TIM: To regain his strength after the accident, he swam in the Mediterranean. His good friends joined him as his injuries healed. An animation shows Cousteau and two of his friends swimming in the sea. TIM: They nicknamed themselves "The Sea Musketeers". An image shows Cousteau and his friends posing with snorkles on the beach. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Good point. In French, it was Les Mousquemers. MOBY: Beep. Tim attempts to pronounce the word with a French accent. TIM: Mousquemers. MOBY: Beep. Moby looks unimpressed. Tim tries again. TIM: Mousque--'' ah, whatever. Cousteau wanted to capture his undersea adventures on film. But the technology at that time was pretty limited. ''An animation shows Cousteau taking underwater movie footage, using a film camera in a plexiglass box. TIM: Scuba gear didn't let you dive that deep, or for very long. And there weren't any waterproof film cameras. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Cousteau and an engineer pal built a new and improved scuba system. An animation shows Cousteau and his friend displaying diagrams of their system. TIM: Using this aqua-lung, they could dive deeper and for way longer. An animation shows Cousteau wearing his new scuba gear. TIM: He also built a camera that'd let him film underwater. An animation shows Cousteau using his new movie camera to film a squid. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Cousteau actually developed lots of crazy gear during his career. He basically invented the shark-proof cage. An animation shows Cousteau underwater in a shark-proof cage, with sharks swimming around him. TIM: That let him get closer to the animals than any filmmaker before him. Later on, he designed a series of underwater labs. The ConShelf habitats could support several people for up to a month. The "oceanauts" lived, worked, and played in these fully equipped environments. An animation shows a ConShelf underwater lab at the bottom of a sea. Several people live in the lab. TIM: And when they wanted to take a ride? They just took their jet-powered diving saucer out for a spin. An animation shows a diving saucer leaving the lab and moving out into the water. MOBY: Beep. TIM: For Cousteau and his buddies, the oceans were like outer space. A vast frontier just begging to be explored. They imagined a day when humans would colonize the seafloor. Before that could happen, brave pioneers would have to lead the way. The diving saucer moves past a large network of underwater colonies. TIM: The Musketeers lived by the saying "Il faut aller voir." MOBY: Beep. Tim tries unsuccessfully to correctly pronounce "aller voir." TIM: Aller voir. MOBY: Beep. Moby places his face in his hand and shakes his head. TIM: Anyway, it means, "We must go and see for ourselves!" That was the motto of the Calypso. It was an old minesweeper they totally tricked out. An animation shows workers turning a battered, rusty old ship into the Calypso. The clean, restored ship sets off across the ocean. TIM: They transformed it into the base of operations for all their exploits. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Not so much a research vessel, more like a floating tree fort or clubhouse. They always had a scrappy canine mascot, and later on, they added a mini helicopter. An animation shows the Calypso's crew and their dog relaxing on the ship's deck. A small helicopter flies overhead. TIM: Cousteau's movies all focused on his fun-loving crew. In fact, their first movie didn't involve the study of marine life at all. Shipwrecks is a short film all about, well, surveying shipwrecks. An animation shows Cousteau and his assistants exploring a shipwreck at the bottom of an ocean. TIM: The sunken vessels were playgrounds for Cousteau's crew. They inspected the nooks like kids sneaking around an old building. And pulled up all sorts of treasures and trinkets. Cousteau swims up to the surface of the water, holding artifacts from the sunken ship. MOBY: Beep. TIM: The movie thrilled audiences and impressed critics. Its success gave Cousteau an idea. If he filmed his expeditions, they'd pay for themselves. An animation shows Cousteau reading a newspaper underwater. The newspaper's headline reads: Shipwrecks a Treasure. MOBY: Beep. TIM: It totally worked. People fell in love with the Captain, his accent, his tiny red cap, and his infectious smile. An animation shows Cousteau and a group of his admirers, raising a toast. TIM: He piled up Oscars and other prestigious awards. An animation shows Cousteau on a stage, holding an armload of Oscar awards. He is smiling and several people are holding microphones and taking his picture. TIM: The Calypso's crew traveled the world, diving where no one ever had before. They hitched rides on giant turtles and horsed around with porpoises, racing them across the sea. A montage of animations shows Cousteau and his men traveling across oceans and seas, exploring, and studying and playing with sea life, as Tim describes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, early on Cousteau saw animals more as playthings, not as creatures deserving of dignity and protection. His crew once blew up a reef to get better footage, took some seals and tried to train them like a circus act, and even killed a bunch of sharks as revenge for eating a baby whale. Animations show the three incidents Tim describes. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, not too nice. And not at all scholarly. But Cousteau evolved over the course of his career. He began inviting real scientists to work aboard the Calypso. An animation shows Cousteau in a conversation with a scientist. TIM: By the time his TV show premiered in 1968, he'd rethought his attitude toward the environment. An animation shows the opening credits of Cousteau's TV show. Text reads: The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. TIM: He warned viewers about the wastefulness of modern society, cautioned them about the dangers of pollution and overfishing, and moved them to value the sea and its inhabitants. A series of animations show Cousteau speaking and pointing to a pie chart, a ship with oil spilling out from under it, and a large net filled with dead fish. TIM: Off-camera, Cousteau led efforts to ban whale hunting and stop pollution in the Mediterranean. An animation shows a store selling televisions. Customers are staring at the TV sets which are all showing a program on whales. TIM: Cousteau kept making movies almost right up to his death in 1997. The one-time musketeer and adventurer was remembered as a dedicated conservationist. That's someone who champions the environment and wildlife. An animation shows Cousteau scuba diving underwater, surrounded by smiling sea life. TIM: You know, I've always thought of us as a couple of musketeers. MOBY: Beep. Moby produces two red caps like Cousteau's. Tim and Moby put on their caps. TIM: Totally. "Il faut aller voir." Moby frowns at Tim's attempt to speak French. MOBY: Beep. Tim tries again. TIM: Aller voir. MOBY: Beep. Moby is not impressed. Tim tries again. TIM: Aller. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Voir. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts